My Soul to Keep
by amberpire
Summary: "I don't think I will ever believe in God, but maybe she will." ;Katniss/Johanna; Katniss POV. Takes place post-Mockingjay. Rated M for future chapters.
1. Chapter 1

**My Soul to Keep**

_Chapter One_

"You're going to have to stop dreaming about me eventually."

I peel one eye open to look at her. She's lying on her side, her face propped up with an open hand. I reach out and touch her other cheek, glowing bronze with the sun. She is soft and warm and so _real_ that I have trouble believing her. "I'm not dreaming," I say, but I don't feel my mouth moving with the words.

She smiles sadly at me. Her hand covers mine. "You know you are."

It's a weird sensation knowing that I am dreaming. This meadow - the sun, the flowers, the grass tickling the skin of my arms - none of it is real. Rue isn't real. Maybe it's the powerful desperation in me that keeps me from waking up. I wish I had that kind of control over the nightmares. That's why I don't bother arguing with her; these dreams are so few and far between that I don't care at this point that it's fabricated.

"Yeah." The word slips on the edge of a sigh. I shadow my eyes from the sun and watch clouds race overhead, like I'm watching a film on fastforward.

Rue falls onto her stomach and plucks tiny purple flowers from the ground. Her dark fingers begin weaving the stems together. I had never seen her in clothes that weren't fashioned specifically for the Games, but here she is wearing a cream sundress and no shoes and she is beautiful and young and alive. An ache I am far too familiar with begins cementing in my chest.

"Rue." It comes out as a sob and here, in this place with her, I don't feel bad about it. I reach for her again. She looks at me and smiles, taking one of my hands in both of hers and shushing me softly.

"It's okay, Katniss. You can cry."

I don't want to cry. This isn't supposed to be a nightmare.

"I miss you." It's a whisper. The breeze dies to nothing, as if to keep my words from blowing away. "I miss -" My voice hiccups, but I'm not embarrassed. This is the only place where I trust myself to feel less than brave. "I miss Prim."

"Why isn't she here, too?"

I shake my head, pulling my hand away and bending my arm over my face. "I never see her in my dreams. It's just you. Sometimes Finnick. Never Prim. I don't know why."

"You're afraid it would do more harm than good."

My arm falls away. Rue is taking pieces of my hair into her hands and stringing the long line of flowers she's woven together to make a braid.

"I don't want to wake up, Rue."

"Don't say that." She looks at me sternly for a moment before returning to her task. "Prim wouldn't want you thinking that way, Katniss."

"There's nothing left. I'm not the Mockingjay anymore." My voice is rising. I catch it just barely, not wanting to uproot the fragile dream. "I served my purpose, Rue. And so many people died for it. But it's over and now there's nothing - there's nothing left. Mom's moved away. I don't speak to Gale anymore. Peeta -"

"Katniss. Shh. Listen."

My mouth locks shut. I sit up on my elbows and look across the meadow, far over the hills where the land meets the sky. Rue moves closer to me. "What is it?" I ask, craning my ear forward.

"Don't you hear it?" Rue points to nothing.

"I don't -" And then I do. Gunfire. Distant booms in rapid succession punch the sky until it's bleeding red.

"Katniss," Rue whimpers, clinging to me. I grab onto her, panic swelling my chest to the point I can't breathe. "Katniss, do something! Katniss!"

It's not gunfire. It's cannons. I look to the sky to see a dozen faces glaring down at us. Their expressions are distorted with agony.

"No." I shake my head, wanting to close my eyes but I can't seem to remember how. I see Finnick, Thresh, Cinna, Mags, Wiress - every ground-trembling boom pulls forth a new face, every Tribute, every Panem citizen, all the blood that is on my hands. "No! No!"

"Katniss!"

I twist to look at Rue, but it isn't Rue in my arms anymore. My mouth rips open with a scream that tears me straight from the dream into my bed, arms and legs thrashing. I fall with a painful thud onto the floor. The blankets are twisted around my legs and it feels too much like arms trying to pin me down so I kick them violently away.

Gasping, crying, I pull my knees to my chest and try to contain myself. Like it matters - there's no one in this house but me. I try to take comfort in that, my well-deserved and self-inflicted solitude, but the dream was so vivid, those cannons were so _real_ -

Three rapid bangs have me staggering to my feet. I hold my breath and listen in anxious silence and then - again, this time with more fervor.

I check the clock as I move into the hallway - it's nearly two hours before sunrise. I figure it has to be Haymitch since he's the only one who ever visits me anyway, but at this hour he's usually long since passed out. Maybe he's in one his emotional fits again which I pray to every god I can think of isn't the case, because drunk Haymitch I can handle, but drunk emotional Haymitch is a different matter entirely.

It's winter and the house is cold, the wood floors cracking beneath my freezing feet. I grab a cardigan from the closet and bundle it around my chest. The knocking comes again as I near the door, this time bordering on frantic. "Coming!" Maybe Haymitch forgot his shoes and locked himself out of the house or something - he better be dying if he's going to scare the crap out of me at this time of night.

I grab the doorknob and pull it open, Haymitch's name on my lips, but it never makes it any further. Because it's not Haymitch standing nearly frozen at my door, dressed in a long sleeved thermal and sweatpants. It's not Haymitch holding one arm over their stomach with the other raised in a fist, ready to knock again. It's not Haymitch sobbing open-mouthed on my porch.

It's Johanna Mason.

* * *

Having Johanna in my house is an even weirder experience than I could have imagined - which I never have, because she is the last person I would have ever expected to pay me a visit. 'Visit' seems like the wrong word, though, because that implies there was some kind of planning beforehand and, you know, some general knowledge of the event happening, of which there was none. I almost think I'm still dreaming as I sit across from her at the table, passing her a mug of steaming coffee. She takes it greedily, ignoring my warning of its probably scalding contents and bringing it straight to her lips.

"I don't know how you do this," she says, wiping her mouth on her sleeve. "This winter shit. Seven gets cold, but we rarely have snow. It's proper bullshit, Katniss."

She stopped crying as soon as I let her in, but her eyes are still ringed red and swollen. She's even thinner than I remember from the last time I saw her - what, eight months ago? Had it only been that long? Her hair has grown some but it's still short enough that it doesn't need a brush, coming in wild and dark with the tips ending below her earlobes.

I don't realize I haven't said anything until I feel her eyes all but tearing a hole in my face. I open my mouth in an attempt, but I can't come up with anything even slightly normal because Johanna is talking about the weather at my dinner table in the middle of the night and, honestly, that's as bizarre as it gets.

"Why -?" is as far as I can manage.

"Nice to see you too, Katniss. You look well. Me? I'm fine. I'm fucking peachy." She raises her mug and smiles so I can see her teeth. "Never better."

"I'm sorry." I shake my head and spread my hands on the table. "I just - I'm sorry. I just woke up. You scared me."

"I thought I heard you screaming." She sips at the coffee again, setting it down so she can peer inside. "Didn't know you were so jumpy."

"It wasn't -" I stop. Talking about my dreams with Johanna is where I draw the line for tonight. "It's fine. Are you -" I don't finish the question because the answer is obvious. Clearing my throat, I try again. "How have you been?" It comes out more awkward than I intended. She shoots me a knowing glance that I squirm under.

"Oh, you know. Living the life in the New Panem. Got my own place, working in the lumber yards, building houses and schools and libraries." Johanna dips a finger into her coffee. She's shivering, but as I stand to grab her a blanket from the closet I realize she's crying. Silently, carefully contained, and she's biting her lip so hard I fear she might actually break the skin.

"Hold on." I move quickly to the closet, grabbing a blanket from the top shelf and coming back to drape it over Johanna's shoulders. She tightens her hands at the edges and draws it closer to her chest.

"I fucked up, Katniss. I really, really fucked up."

I ease into the chair beside her. A hand tentatively comes to rest on her back. One would think that the amount of time I've spent around grieving people would make me at least semi good at comforting them, but it is still a lost art to me.

Prim would know what to say, what to do.

I swallow the thought down.

"Jesus." Johanna presses a hand to her face and tries to take a breath. "Fuck. I didn't know where else to go. I just - I just got on the train and went. Straight from the health center, I got right on the train and came to twelve because there was no one else." She lifts her head and looks at me so intensely I'm having trouble breathing, too.

"It's okay." I'm not sure if that's true or not. Part of me feels bad for not knowing; after everything we went through it only seems natural that she would think of me as someone she could turn to for help. And I do want to help her because I know Johanna lost everyone before the Revolution even began, but I am so exhausted of helping. "Johanna, really. It's fine. Are you okay? Are you ... are you sick?"

Johanna shakes her head and the relief that floods me is stronger than I expected. She shifts away from me and comes to a stand, still holding the blanket around her body. It follows her like a wedding train to the window where she presses her forehead against the glass. "Katniss," she says, dark eyes falling closed. I watch as one hand releases the edge of the blanket and travels down her torso, thin fingers splaying across her stomach.

And I know, then, but I refuse to believe it for a second.

"No," I say, pushing myself to a stand. I'm shaking my head, slowly rounding the table so I can approach her. "Johanna -"

"I didn't even think - it didn't even occur to me." She laughs, a sound like gravel in her throat. "Like, after the Games, the Revolution, the war, I thought - I don't know what I thought. That it could never happen? That it just wasn't possible? That after all that bullshit I could be spared of ever having to worry about this happening to me but no, fuck, that would be too generous of the goddamn universe, wouldn't it? That would be too - fucking - much - to ask for." She punctuates each word with a slam of her fist to the window.

I don't know what else to do. I come up behind her, taking her by the wrist and trying to pull her away from the glass. Johanna cries - or screams, I can't tell - and collapses against me, dragging me with her to the floor.

"After everything," Johanna gasps, her fingers clawing for purchase at my arms like she's afraid I'll run. "After _everything_, a baby is the cruelest joke I've ever heard."


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter Two_

It's been eight months since Johanna and I were bunking together in District Thirteen but she sleeps just the same. Fitfully, almost aggressively, twisting and turning and snapping awake every time I shift positions only to slip under again a moment later. The brief seconds where our eyes meet are terrifying; I can see the girl she must have been during her first Games, poised to strike even half asleep. There's something sick about the way I understand that.

I lie on my side and study her, cocooned in my blankets with only half her face visible. I didn't intend to get into bed with her, but the moment I tried to leave her alone she nearly dragged me beside her. Back in District Thirteen I watched her recover from months of torture and morphling addiction, but I don't think I ever saw her as desperate as I did when she asked me to stay with her while she slept.

Pink and yellow stripes crawl over the walls as the sun rises outside. Usually I would be up by now, weaving through the thickening forest surrounding Twelve. Hunting isn't really necessary anymore - New Panem has farms now, and I hear talk (mostly from Haymitch, since I don't really talk to anyone else) that they're going to build grocery stores. Like, you just go in and buy food that is almost ready to eat as soon as you get it. The concept is so alien to me, so Capitol, that part of me wants to just keep hunting for the rest of my life. But all the reasons I did it before aren't valid now that the Revolution is over; I don't need to hunt to feed my family, I don't do it to spend time away from my mom or to spend time with Gale. It's barely even a challenge anymore. I could shoot rabbits and birds and foxes all day and not miss once.

"You do it to keep busy."

The voice is so sudden that I almost rip myself out of the dream again. Rolling over slowly, I see Rue, lying on her stomach like before, the same project of flowers in her hand, except this time she's making a crown.

"It gives you something to do. You don't have to think about it, really, so it takes up your time. You really need a different hobby, Katniss." She glances at me with a grin curling one side of her mouth.

I smirk back at her. "What, exactly, would I take up? Knitting?"

Rue snorts. "Fingerpainting?"

We both laugh, loud and unashamed. She motions for me to sit up and I do, cross-legged in front of her as she holds the flower crown over my head like a halo.

"What are you going to do?" She asks, carefully easing it on top of my head.

"About what?"

"Johanna. The baby."

For a long moment I don't know what she's talking about. The awareness of my dreamland nearly throws me out of it, but Rue's hands root me here, now holding each of my shoulders.

"I don't know, Rue." I wave the question away, like that will make the entire situation disappear. "Not here, okay?"

She frowns but drops the subject. Falling back on her knees, Rue studies her handiwork with pride. "It looks good on you."

"Yeah?" I turn toward the pond - because of course there's a pond in a beautiful place like this, and before my eyes one materializes, shimmering and bottomless. I search for my reflection in the water and it takes me a moment to realize there isn't one. Frowning, I move my hand to the surface and watch ripples collect at my fingertips before pulsing out. I lift my head to watch them race away, climbing into waves the farther they travel. And it isn't a pond anymore, it's an ocean, and I can't see where it ends. I spin to find Rue on our little island but the person standing there isn't Rue; it's Johanna, reaching for my face.

The dream shatters like a stone through glass. My eyes fly open. Johanna's hand is already on my cheek, her face tilted so close to mine I can see the spaces between her eyelashes.

"You all right in there?" Johanna slowly withdraws her hand. I inhale sharply, as if her touch had kept my lungs still.

"Yeah." I roll on my back, rubbing a fist into my eye. "Was I talking?" I try to make the question sound nonchalant; whether it comes off that way, Johanna doesn't comment.

"No. Whimpering." Mimicking me, she rolls on her back and stares at the ceiling. Her hands fold over her stomach. "Better than screaming, I guess."

I look toward the window. The sun is fully above the white-frosted tips of the trees. The strangeness of the scenario is starting to dissipate, replaced with a familiar atmosphere. This is what it was like to wake up with Johanna on the other side of the room every day in District Thirteen. Part of me is eager to fall into the routine we had built there: breakfast, training, lunch, training. The open day ahead makes me nervous because ... what now?

"Do you have any food? Or do you feed on loneliness and self-pity?"

When I turn to her, she's grinning. I punch her lightly on the shoulder. "I missed you, you know."

I mean it. When I moved back to Twelve, everyone treated me like I was this fragile, broken little girl on the verge of falling apart. Which was probably true - and maybe still is, at least a little - but it's one thing for people to be careful around me and another entirely for them to all but sprint away when I come into town for necessities. I don't care so much about them as I do about the people who were with me since my first Games, Haymitch and Peeta and Gale, who have all, in one way or another, pulled away. I can't really say that I blame them. It's not like I'm doing much to reach out or keep anyone around, either. But it's nice, almost relaxing, to be in the presence of someone who treats me like everyone else, like I'm not damaged goods. Johanna has never been subtle or censored and I'm grateful for that.

She holds my eyes for several moments after I speak, as if searching them for deception. And then her grin broadens and seeing it touch her eyes is beautiful. "Missed you too, brainless. Now c'mon. Food. Chop chop."

"What do you think this is? The Everdeen bed and breakfast suite?"

"It goddamn better be after I rode the train all the way here."

I make a face at her that she mirrors. Rolling my eyes, I climb out of bed and grab my cardigan from the doorknob. I look back at her as I leave the room, getting comfortable in my blankets, and the image makes me smile at her. Even if the circumstances are less than pleasant, I'm glad she feels safe here. It's all anyone is truly looking for.

I cook eggs Haymitch brought me the other day and start frying potatoes on the stove. Hunting has always been the better of my skills, not so much cooking, but living alone for months forces you to either get better at it or eat terrible meals. I toss some bread in the toaster and start a fresh pot of coffee. The motions are relaxing and domestic, almost surreal. I am acutely aware of the peace New Panem is in outside my house. There are families out there doing the same things I am now, preparing for another day without going hungry or being afraid. This can be - this _is_ the new normal now.

After setting the table I climb the stairs again, calling out for Johanna to get her lazy ass downstairs when I hear a terrible retching sound coming from the bathroom. I move so fast I trip on the last stair, slamming my elbow against the bare floor. Hissing, I hold it as I walk swiftly to the bathroom door and press my ear to it. "Johanna?"

"I'm okay," she says, promptly followed by another round of puking. I try to open the door but Johanna kicks it shut in my face. "Go," she croaks. "I'll be down in a minute."

I linger just long enough to hear her dry-heaving before finally walking away, back down the stairs and into the kitchen. I sit in front of my plate with a forgotten appetite.

Johanna showing up in the middle of the night crying is weird enough, but I guess after everything we've been through, it's not entirely out there. But the baby ... that's something that would have never crossed my mind. I try to imagine it - Johanna carrying a baby on her hip while wielding an axe or swearing up a storm or doing whatever Johanna does in her free time, and I just can't. It's like trying to picture me with a child of my own. The idea doesn't even compute.

I'm not even sure what her options are. Pregnancy is so far above my head; what little I do know is from what I can vaguely recall of when my mother was pregnant with Prim. There isn't much to remember since I was so young then, but I do have memories of Mom soaking her feet in a small tub of hot water every night and my father praying over her swollen abdomen.

I don't realize my eyes are pricking with tears until I hear footsteps coming down the stairs. I wipe them away with the cuff of my sleeve and focus my attention on Johanna as she emerges into view. Her hair is wild from sleep and her face is ghostly with a thin sheet of sweat. She collapses in the chair across from me, eyes on the plate of food. One hand quickly moves to cover her mouth. I start to stand, ready to bolt to the kitchen for a bowl, but she shakes her head and uses the same hand to motion me back down. I sit on the edge of the seat and watch her in silence, unsure of how to broach the subject. Because we can't just go about the day as if everything about this is normal when it's so blatantly obvious that it's not.

I wish we were back in bed. It was easier to pretend that it was.

"What are your options?" It seems as good a start as any. I take a fork and beginning cutting into my fried potatoes.

Johanna doesn't answer for a long time. She pushes the plate aside with an apologetic look my way before leaning until her chin is on the table. "I'm twelve weeks in," she finally says, her shoulders rising and falling with a hard, heavy sigh. "I didn't even notice that I missed my period. I went to the health center because I kept throwing up in the morning. The nurse was like, have you been sexually active? And then I knew. I knew before they even ran the test." Johanna sniffles, running her nose along her sleeve. "I had gone out with a friend of mine from the lumber yards. I just wanted to have fun, you know? I was tired of being all sad and shit. So I got wasted because, fuck it, I'm entitled to get wasted, and I hooked up with a guy. Some random twat I had never met before. I don't even know what his name was."

I haven't taken a bite yet, I just keep cutting my potatoes. I set the fork down and look at her. She's staring over my shoulder, out the window. Her dark eyes are dry but her lower lip is trembling.

"I can terminate." Johanna meets my eyes and waits, as if hoping for my permission.

"Johanna." Without thinking, I reach across the table. I'm surprised at how eager she is to take my hand. Her grip is nearly bone-crushing. "Whatever you want to do, I'm going to support you. Okay? I'm here for whatever you decide."

"Will you come with me?" Her breath catches in a hiccup.

I squeeze her hand. "Of course."

We eat. She doesn't let go of my hand. When I stand to take away the dishes she does, too, but even as our hands fall apart she stays close to me, following at my heels to the kitchen sink. Once her hands are free she throws them around my neck and crushes me to her chest. Paralyzed, I do little but stand there for several seconds.

"Didn't know you were the hugging type," I say into her ear, my breath coming out of me a little more unsteadily than I would have hoped.

She shakes with a chuckle. "Shut up. Just hug me, smartass."

I grin and I do.

* * *

**A/N**: Holy shit I updated within a month of posting. It's a goddamn miracle.

I know the start is slow, but starting next chapter (which is already 1/3 of the way written! I'm on a fucking roll) action does start to happen. Thank you for the reviews! You guys are great.


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